The Timeless String Of The Yo-Yo

What is the true nature of reality? Liquid understanding stapled to a radish. The poise of structure entangled in the sinew of a kneecap. Even the moon has gardens. Giant ossuaries whose mighty plots are timbered with halitosis. This could be a reason for charm. Here: eat this. It will make you dribble. The best way to resolve a regret is to exasperate death. Just let it bounce down the steps & then pull it back with a string. Include a cherry. Murmur your pain to a needle. Sewing requires a steady capacity for yearning. For pushing doors. For ambling around in circles. Hold still. Do you feel it? Press the button. Now do you see it? This machine is made of words. My belt buckle throws its tzar at a typewriter. Now then: let’s go rescue some fluff. 

        Hammers are already here as pragmata, says Heidegger. I suspected as much. Hammers have always had that look, that air of pragmatism. They just want to pound things. Nails, mostly. And look at the nails: they’re energetic as horses. Just jingle them in a bag. You’ll hear tire chains in Nebraska. Niceties exchanged at the hair salon. A drunk look sourly at a mirror in a bar, & blow his nose. This is what life is like on planet Earth in the 21st century. People enduring their own elaborations. Measuring beams. Pouring concrete. Pounding nails. Turning the radio up. 

        Imagine structures so large that current cosmological theories can’t explain them. How is that accomplished? In the mind, I mean, where there is no boundary, or seems to be no boundary, but it craves pictures. Images. What image can I erect in my mind that no cosmological theory could explain it? A junkyard rhinoceros made of tin & solitaire? They say the universe resembles a cosmic web of matter surrounding empty voids. Who am I to disagree? I’m here primarily for the cheese. Anything larger than a hat confuses me, & makes me want to run away to Switzerland. 

        It's all about transport in the end, isn’t it? Getting from point A to point B. Except in places like this. Places where the words are allowed to go in their own direction. Follow whatever impulse inhabits them. If the essence of the hammer is revealed to us by its use, by pounding nails & flattening wire, then words must be used to reveal what flora & fauna might emerge from their propagation. The flutter of antediluvian ferns. Ancient deities. The timeless string of the yo-yo. 

        That ongoing fascination, trying to imagine the first human being to make a sound come out of their mouth that made reference to something. The first word. What might that have been? Fire? Food? Pain? Or the first word that made reference to something not present. Something abstract. Fairness. Courage. Loyalty. How long ago? 200,000 years? I’ll never know. But it’s amusing to contemplate. Just the idea alone that a sound made with breath & vibrations in the vocal cords can mean something, refer to something. And that first occasion when the sounds referred to things that never existed, would never exist in nature. And that such things can be written down, & presented to other people. What is the value in that? Besides a remarkable perversity. The arc of the yo-yo & its polydispersity.